Thanks in large part to the convenient testimony of a jailhouse snitch, Marshall “Eddie” Conway was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the 1970 murder of a Baltimore police officer. Now nearly 44 years years later Eddie Conway is free thanks to tireless support of National Lawyers Guild attorney Robert Boyle and others. Volunteer lawyers in the case proved that justice had been denied due to the judge instructing the jury that told them that they could convict Conway even if they had doubts about his guilt.

Conway was a member of the the Baltimore Chapter of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense which it was later discovered was founded by undercover police officers. By the time of Conway’s arrest, the Party’s leadership had already been decimated by COINTELPRO. Government agents had infiltrated various chapters leading to arrests, incidents of snitch-jacketing (sometimes with deadly consequences) and fractures due to false rumors. The most egregious known incident was the outright murders of Chicago based Panther leaders Mark Clark and Fred Hampton! Conway was considered to be part of the party secondary leadership. His unjust nearly four and a half decades behind bars was a result of that.